888 Giant Humans Found Across North America. Many of them with Neanderthal looking skulls. A later migration of giants from the Biblical Levant would incorporate advanced mathematics into the geometric earthworks in the Ohio Valley. These giants have historically been known as the Nephilim

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Adena Hopewell Stone Work at Spruce Hill in Ross County, Ohio

SPRUCE HILL ADENA HOPEWELL WORK IN ROSS COUNTY,OHIO

The chief of these upland bulwarks, indeed the
largest stone edifice of the Mound Builders in this
country, was erected on Spruce Hill, in the south-
ern part of Ross county. This work occupies the
level summit of a hill some four hundred feet
in height; the elevation is a long triangular shaped
spur, terminating a range of hills with which it is
connected by a narrow neck or isthmus, the latter
affording the really only accessible approach to the
"fort," for the hillsides at all other points are re-
markably steep and in places practically perpendicu-
lar. The summit commands a wide outlook over the
surrounding country. Within a radius of two or
three miles on the plain beneath, to the east, north
and west, were groups of aboriginal works, includ-
ing isolated mounds and extensive enclosures. It
was the midst of a mound-building neighborhood;
the site of Chillicothe, a great aboriginal center, was
some eleven miles distant to the northeast. No place
more advantageous for the purposes of defense or
observation could have been chosen. The barrier con-
sisted of a wall composed entirely of stone, mostly
fragments of sandstone from the hill ledge and cob-
blestones, found in abundance on the summit. No
earth was used in the wall, the line of which was
carried around the hill a little below the brow. This
barricade, once so complete and impregnable, is now
sadly depleted and displaced ; the victim of the wear
and tear of hoary time, the upheaval of the elements,
and the spoliation by thrifty farmers, who repair their
fences with the "inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
all scattered" the summit and hillside about; most
ruthless enemy of all to lay siege to the battlements
were the tall primitive trees which sprang up beneath
and around the curious, loose masonry, thrusting and
twisting their roots among the stones and with
irresistible strength lifting and scattering them
apart; in many instances firmly imbedding them in
their trunks; a royal battle, an irrepressible conflict,
this has been between the stolid stones and the grow-
ing giants of the forest; for untold cycles, possibly
for more than a millennium, this contest has been
waged, and many a monarch of the woods worn and
bent with the life of centuries has at last fallen in
decay amid the crude and crumbling masonry, thus
testifying to the vast period that this fort has stood,
grim guardian of its charge. At the present time
the stone structure, "trembling all precipitate down
dashed," merely suggests its pristine regularity and
form. The appearance of the ruins demonstrates
that the line had an average base width of eight or ten
feet and a height of six or eight, the stones being piled
one upon the other with no other means than their
own weight to hold them in place. The width and
height of the wall originally varied, as the ruins in-
dicate, according to the requirements of the summit
contour and the naturally weak or strong defense
features of the line followed. At the places where the
approach was most easy the wall was broadest, being
at points thirty feet and even more across the base.
The wall is entirely wanting at one point where the
perpendicular rock cliff rendered protection unneces-
sary. Where the defense crosses the isthmus, some
seven hundred feet wide, the wall was heaviest and
here was the main entrance, with three gateways
opening upon the terrace extending beyond. This
gateway consisted of three openings in the wall, the
intercepting segments of which, in each case, curving
inwards, formed a horseshoe, whose inward curves
were forty or fifty feet in length, leaving narrow pas-
sages, no wider than eight feet, between. At these
gateways, the amount of stones is more than four
times the quantity at other points of the wall, and
constituted broad, mound-shaped heaps. Between
these heaps, through the narrow defile, the enemy
would have to pass in attempting an entrance. On
the east wall apparently two other single gateways
originally existed, as indicated by the curved lines,
but these were subsequently closed up. At the north-
ern apex of the fort another gateway existed, pro-
tected as the others by inward carrying walls. Ex-
cepting the isthmus, this was perhaps the most vul-
nerable point of the hill-top as the sides sloped
down into the valley, affording steep but possible
ascent. Here the walls were unusually high and
strong. The stone heaps at the great gateway give
proof of having been subjected to intense heat, a
feature also discernible at certain other points in
the wall. Within the enclosure were found two stone
mounds, located near points of the breastworks
which commanded the fartherest extent of view.
These mounds were burned throughout, suggesting
that great fires may have been maintained thereon,
perhaps for alarm signals, perhaps for religious cere-
monies, perhaps for sacrificial rites.
There were several depressions in the enclosed
space, one covering two acres, which could afford con-
stant supply of water. There was no moat or ditch
at any point, either exterior or interior to the wall.
The wall, continuous save at the interruptions men-
tioned above, measures two and a quarter miles in
length and encloses an area of over one hundred and
The "Pond" in Spruce Hill Fort.
forty acres. The magnitude of this hill-top stone en-
closure exceeds any similar construction attributed to
the Mound Builder. It evinces tremendous labor and
unusual ingenuity of arrangement. The wonder at
this stupendous labor grows when it is considered
that it must have been erected without the aid of
beasts of burden or mechanical contrivances. It was
literally built by hand labor by "piece work." Such a
fortress, so situated, must have been, to a primitive
people, impervious to the storm of savage warfare. It
knew no surrender save to a vandal demolition of a
modern, ruthless civilization; "but man would mar
them with an impious hand.'' This effacement is of
comparatively a recent date. As we learn from the in-
vestigators who first left descriptions, the result of
survej's in the first third of the last century, the walls
were then in a fair state of preservation and easily fol-
lowed in outline and reconstructed in plan. Now ob-
literation almost reigns supreme. Some ten years ago,
the writer with a party of experts, personally in-
spected the remaining ruins and from them, with
slight pla'y of the imagination, could rebuild the crude
fortress. Another inspection during the preparation
of this monograph, gave evidence of the final touches
of a destructive hand. The line of the walls presented
little more than dismantled, scattered, brush-covered
heaps of grass-grown stones; the great gateway in
diminished height and demolished shape was still
there, as if reluctant to yield its post, grimly strug-
gling to forbid entrance to the spacious field of grow-
ing corn that filled the enclosure; the little pond,
still holding water, had shrunk to a fraction of its
former size; from its depths the gutteral croak of a
bull frog seemed to mockingly sound the death knell
to even the memories of the greatness and glory of
Spruce Hill Fort. Surely in this desolation was there
theme for some poet, for an apostrophe such as
Byron's on the passing 1 of the Eternal City :
"Come and see the cypress, hear the owl,
And plod your way o'er broken thrones and temples.
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay."
But there is one feature left intact. The insati-
able tiller of the soil may tear down prehistoric walls
to "mend his fences," and plow level the mounds
erected on the plain, that he may plant a few more
stalks of corn, but his greed has thus far invented no
method of devastating the landscape. Nature-loving
Thoreau mourned that the axe was slowly destroying
his forest. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "they can-
not cut down the clouds." Iconoclastic agriculture
has kindly left the scene which rewards the ascent of
Spruce Hill a captivating view such as seldom
"Hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields."
Your outlook sweeps the Paint Creek valley for
miles on either side; the peacefuly flowing stream
winds its way through fields glowing in the varied
colors of the summer's ripening grain, all framed
by the encircling, gentle-sloping, forest-clad hills.
Were this scene in Bonnie Scotland, travelers would
cross the sea to extol its surpassing beauty. The largest Indian mound site on the web is here